Bras and other garments such as swimsuits that have an upper-body portion incorporating breast pads are well-known. The breast pads incorporated into such garments can serve various functions including providing support as well as enhancing the shape or size of the wearer's breasts, absorbing moisture, providing varying levels of coverage and/or comfort and the like. Examples of such garments are padded bras, padded exercise tops, dresses, and padded one-piece and bikini swimsuits.
Breast pads are known to be made using a variety of materials, and they may be incorporated into garments as removable elements or more permanently sewn or otherwise fixed to the body of the garment. For either construction, it would generally be aesthetically desirable for the overall garment to have as smooth and as uniform an appearance as would a similar garment not incorporating breast pads. In this way, the role of the breast pads in providing support, enhancements and/or moisture absorption would not be made immediately apparent to observers.
Padded bras and similar garments having a supportive upper-body portion tend to incorporate light nude or white coloured breast pads. However, when worn fitted closely to the wearer, such white and nude breast pads often result in an undesirable effect in which the breast pads appear in noticeable contrast with the rest of the garment. This contrast is especially apparent in reversible bras having the characteristic of one light tone on one side of the bra and a different, darker tone on the opposite side of the bra. In such cases, light nude and white breast pads will often contrast against the darker-toned side of the bra, highlighting or making visible the breast pad through the lighter-toned side of the bra when facing outwards from the wearer. This effect is sometimes referred to informally as the “headlight” effect and may even be visible to observers through an additional garment worn overtop, such as a blouse. The headlight effect due to the contrast, an example of which is shown in FIG. 1, makes it apparent to observers that there are breast pads in the breast garment.